St Petersburg
Russia
Canals, the Hermitage, and a month of nights that never get dark
Photo by Evgenii Zolotarev on Unsplash
Photos by Belov Sergey, Tamara Malaniy, Aleksandr Eremin and Aleksandr Eremin on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Russia
June to early September
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 78mm in Aug
Where it is
59.93°N, 30.34°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Weeks of it- Give the Hermitage a full day and still not finish it
- Walk the canals at 1am in June, when it never gets dark
- See the fountains switched on at Peterhof
- Watch the bridges lift over the Neva at night
- Go to the Mariinsky for opera or ballet
- Take the hydrofoil down the Gulf of Finland
St Petersburg travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Russia
Good valueCash, brought with you, in euros or dollars. Foreign Visa and Mastercard do not work anywhere in Russia and have not since 2022. Change at a bank branch with your passport rather than at a kiosk, and keep the receipts — some banks ask for them when you change back.
ATMs & cards
No foreign card will work in any machine in the city. Budget the trip in cash before you leave home. Sberbank and VTB branches on Nevsky Prospekt will change euros and dollars during business hours.
Avoid these
- every machine in the country — foreign cards have not worked since 2022
Use these instead
- Cash, changed at a bank branch on Nevsky Prospekt with your passport
Bring clean, recent euro or dollar notes; damaged ones are refused.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Russia
Reasonably safeA safe city for street crime, walkable late, with the same national caveats that apply to the whole country: Western governments advise against travel, consular help is limited, insurance follows the advice, and the laws on "LGBT propaganda" and on discrediting the armed forces are enforced against visitors too. Pickpockets work Nevsky Prospekt in summer, which is the ordinary risk here.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (6 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- Pickpockets on Nevsky and in the metro
- Apraksin Dvor — the market area
- The bridges, which open at night from April to November and strand you on the wrong bank
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Russia visa rules
e-Visa requiredup to 30 daysabout $50
The unified e-visa was extended to 64 nationalities and to a 30-day stay in August 2026. Apply at least four days ahead; you need a passport valid six months, a digital photo and travel medical insurance valid in Russia. It is only good for entry at designated crossings, which include the Moscow and St Petersburg airports.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
Bilateral agreements, and the permitted stay differs by country — check the official page for yours. Turkish passports are visa-free for a shorter period.
Visa required in advance
US, UK, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand passports are not eligible for the e-visa and need a consular visa, which requires an invitation or tourist voucher from a Russian host or agency. Note also that the governments of those countries currently advise against travel to Russia, and their embassies say plainly that they can offer little help to those who go.
How to get it: Apply on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs e-visa portal, not through an agency charging a markup. There are no direct flights from the EU, the UK or the US; the usual connections are through Istanbul, Dubai or Belgrade.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Russia
Good but costlyRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Routine vaccinations up to date
- Tick-borne encephalitis if you will be in forest or countryside between spring and autumn — this is a genuine risk across Siberia and the Far East
- Hepatitis A
- Rabies for remote or long stays
Getting treated
State hospitals treat emergencies, and the standard varies enormously between Moscow and the regions. Private clinics in Moscow and St Petersburg are good and take cash. The complication is not medical: many Western insurers no longer cover travel to Russia at all, and card payment does not work, so a serious problem has to be paid for in cash or arranged from home.
Ticks in forest across Siberia and the Far East from May to July carry encephalitis, and the vaccination course takes weeks — start it early. Cold is the other one: −20°C is an ordinary winter day in Irkutsk and frostbite happens fast in wind. In Kamchatka the hazards are bears, volcanic ground and weather that strands people for days.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
Very goodEat where the students do on Rubinstein Street, which has more restaurants per metre than anywhere else in the country. Georgian and Central Asian food are the strengths; so is anything with smoked fish, and the pyshki — plain sugared doughnuts — from the Soviet-era counter on Bolshaya Konyushennaya.
Nightlife
Dumskaya Street is an entire street of bars, and the white nights in June mean it never gets dark enough to go home.
- Dumskaya Street — one street, thirty bars
- Rubinshteina Street — the better version of the same idea
Closing: 06:00, and in June the sun does not really set.
The bridges over the Neva open at night from April to November — be on the right side of the river or wait until dawn.
Getting around
Easy- Yandex GoWorks here
- UberNot here
- BoltNot here
Yandex Go the only one that matters, and it is very good
- Against a taxi
- Nobody flags a taxi in Russian cities any more.
A foreign card will not work in the app. It wants a Russian card or cash to the driver, and that is the practical obstacle, not the app.
Time zone and your working day
Europe/Moscow — 7 hours ahead of you
1 hour of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–10:00 your time, 16:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 02:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 02:00–10:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Getting online
Getting online: Holafly — a data eSIM for Russia, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Russian
- HelloЗдравствуйтеZDRAST-vooy-tye
- Hi (informal)Приветpri-VYET
- Please / you’re welcomeПожалуйстаpa-ZHAL-sta
- Thank youСпасибоspa-SEE-ba
7 more phrases
- Yes / NoДа / Нетda / nyet
- Excuse meИзвинитеiz-vi-NEE-tye
- How much?Сколько стоит?SKOL-ka STO-eet
- I don’t understandЯ не понимаюya nye pa-ni-MA-yu
- Do you speak English?Вы говорите по-английски?vy ga-va-REE-tye pa an-GLEE-ski
- CheersЗа здоровьеza zda-ROV-ye
- GoodbyeДо свиданияda svi-DA-ni-ya
Learn the Cyrillic alphabet before you go — an hour of work, and it turns most street signs, menus and metro maps into words you can half-read, because so many are borrowed. English is common among younger people in Moscow and St Petersburg and rare elsewhere. Translation apps with offline Russian are worth downloading before arrival.
Religion
Russian Orthodox
The Orthodox church is woven into the state and into national identity, and church attendance rose sharply after 1991. Visitors are welcome: women cover their heads in a church, men take hats off, everyone stands — there are no pews — and nobody minds a quiet foreigner at the back. Islam is the second religion and the majority in Tatarstan, the North Caucasus and parts of the Volga; Buryatia around Lake Baikal is Buddhist, and its datsans are working monasteries rather than museums.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Take your shoes off in someone’s home; slippers appear immediately
- Shake hands firmly, and only after you have both come inside — a handshake across a threshold is bad luck
- Give flowers in odd numbers. Even numbers are for funerals, and the rule is taken seriously
- Carry your passport and migration card; the police can ask and occasionally do
- Dress up for the theatre and the ballet, and leave your coat in the cloakroom — wearing it inside is not done
Don't
- Do not expect small talk or smiles from strangers; a neutral face in public is normal, not hostility
- Do not photograph military sites, airports or anything a sign forbids — this is enforced
- Do not discuss the war, and understand that the laws on "discrediting the armed forces" and on "LGBT propaganda" apply to visitors, in conversation and on your phone
- Do not refuse a toast at a table without a reason; refusing the third one, to the women present, is worse
- Do not put an empty bottle back on the table, which is a superstition everyone observes without explaining
Where to stay in St Petersburg
No Holistay rentals in St Petersburg yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is St Petersburg on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Pulkovo LED
35 minfrom the airport· 15 km as the crow flies
Bus 39 to Moskovskaya metro, 35 min.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
